Myal sang the song he had made for Ciddey Soban, quietly, to the ground, until he fainted.
The hostelry was one of seven, but the only such place in the river village run by priests. The religious building stood off to one side, a whitewashed tower and wooden belfry piled on top of it. The hostel itself stood within a compound, a single lone story of old brick. The priests came through a wicket gate into the compound to draw water at the well. Olive trees clawed in over the wall. There was a smell of the oil press, and of horses. Dro had hired the horse and the blanket from the priests. They were the only hospitalers in the district who would take in a sick man and care for him. Dro had been down at first light and found this out. And even the priests wanted paying. As he came through the dawn village and saw them, busy in their gardens and orchards, fishing in a pool, scurrying about with washing and baking, horses and dogs and cages of fowl, he wondered when, if ever, they made time to pray.
When he got back to the fortress, leading the horse for Myal, Myal was obviously too sick to travel over the meadow and the causeway and along the village street.
It was a sort of fever Dro had seen before, coming and going in tides. He waited for the next low tide, then hauled Myal into the meadow and shovelled him on the horse. It was almost noon by then.
Dro’s plan had been straightforward. To offload the musician on the priests with enough cash to see ailment and convalescence out. That cancelled all guilts, real or invented; Dro could return to his interrupted journey. That was the original plan. Myal’s news altered things. If it were true. A delirious man might conjure innumerable dreams, believing each and all of them. But that was an insufficient blind. The sense in Parl Dro which judged such things had already credited the death of Ciddey Soban. Her death, and the ominous lacuna which followed it: the fact his premonitions had foreshadowed.
The holy brothers had a stretcher ready at the compound gate. Three of them lifted Myal and laid him on the stretcher and carried him into the single-story hostel.
Dro stood outside the open door, looking through into a room divided by wooden screens and shafts of sunlight. Bed frames were stacked in a corner. One bed had been prepared.
The colour of the order was cream, the same colour as the faded whitewashed walls. Everything blended, brick and linen and men, into a positively supernal luminescence. Myal might come to and think himself in some bizarre afterlife peopled by ugly angels.
One of the angels glided up to the man in black.
“An act of laudable charity, my son,” said the priest, who was far younger than Dro. “To bring in the sick traveller and to pay for his lodging. Rest assured, your piety will not go unnoticed.”
“Really? I thought I’d been fairly circumspect.”
The priest smiled seriously.
“I think you mentioned moving on today. We might be able to come to some arrangement about a horse. Generally, of course, we don’t buy and sell, but I’m sure we could agree on a price. Seeing your–er–your difficulty.”
“What difficulty is that?”
The priest stared at him.
“Your affliction.”
“Oh dear,” said Dro, “have I been afflicted?”
“Your leg. I meant your lameness.”
“Oh dear,” said Dro, “you meant my lameness.”
The priest went on staring, suddenly aware his point was being wilfully missed. He folded his hands in his sleeves, afraid their work-a-day calluses and gestures revealed too much.
“I’m certain you’d be better riding than walking about.”
“Surely not inside the inn,” said Dro.
He began to walk away, and the priest clicked his tongue at the limp. Dro stopped, turned and looked around at him. The priest involuntarily retreated a step and his hands fell back out of his sleeves.